ZAMBIA’S SUSPECTED DIGITAL FRAUD ATTEMPTS RISE
ZAMBIA’S suspected digital fraud attempts among financial services transactions have increased by 167 percent Year-OverYear (YoY) to 12.3 percent.
A new analysis by TransUnion found that the rate of suspected digital fraud attempts among financial services transactions where the consumer was in Zambia when transacting increased by 167 percent YoY to 12.3 percent in 2023.
TransUnion’s 2024 State of Omnichannel Fraud Report released on Thursday showed that this was both the highest suspected digital fraud rate in 2023 and YoY rate growth among industries of statistical significance when the consumer was located in Zambia during transactions.
The analysis found across industries in 2023, 1.5 percent of all transactions where the consumer was in Zambia were flagged as being suspected Digital Fraud, a 40 percent YoY increase.
The report revealed that nearly one in seven newly created accounts were suspected to be created through digital fraud globally, largely driven by bad actors using fabricated or stolen identities.
Examples of the types of transactions that take place during the account creation process include account signup, registration and loan origination.
Among the industries that saw the highest percentage of digital account creation transactions suspected to be digital fraud globally in 2023 were retail (44.7 percent), travel and leisure (36.0 percent), and video gaming (31.5 percent).
TransUnion Zambia Chief Executive Officer, Mildred Stephenson, noted in her comment on the report that this early-phase new account digital fraud may represent a paradigm shift of sorts among fraudsters
“Instead of using traditional tactics to gain access to and ultimately compromise existing accounts, they are increasingly choosing to create new accounts that they can control themselves.
“These fraudsters leverage synthetic identities assembled in large part through the use of credentials gathered as a result of one or multiple data breaches,” she said.
The analysis also gave an overall report on the global digital fraud.
It found that five percent of all global digital transactions were suspected to be digital fraud in 2023, with the volume of risky transactions up 14 percent YoY and 105 percent from 2019 to 2023.
This growth continued to outpace the growth in overall digital transactions, which rose 90 percent from 2019 to 2023.
“In recent years, the global retail industry has consistently been among those with the highest suspected fraud attempt rates. However, in 2023 we saw it climb to the top of the list.
“As a result of credentials stolen in data breaches, often in industries other than retail, it has become increasingly easy for fraudsters to perpetuate attacks that leave retailers vulnerable to account takeover,” Ms Stephenson commented on the global findings.
The report’s findings are based on proprietary insights from TransUnion’s global intelligence network, and includes data from Zambia, Botswana and Brazil, among others.